What are you currently reading?

[Scarpia]

Oh, didn't know about that. Although I don't like to read books on the computer, I think that app could come in handy in certain cases. Now I just need to check if Amazon sells e-books to buyers outside the US.

Neither do I prefer reading on the computer.  But the choice was paying $0 and reading immediately, or paying $10 and waiting a week.  No brainer.  Now paying for the book and reading on the computer, that is another thing.

That said, the "free" books on Amazon have low production value.  They seem to be made from machine scanning of printed matter with little or no editing to fix problems.   For instance, the paragraph breaks in "The Time Machine" seem to be somewhat mangled.  Not a problem here, this is Wells, not Proust, but it would be a problem in a more subtle text.

[FideLeo]

Fabulous. Those who have checked out the British Museum - BBC website would probably want one hard copy for reading in bed, keepsake etc.

[asin]1846144132[/asin]

[Fëanor]

Read this book if you have the least doubt about what the crypto-fascist Pharisees of the American "Christian Right" are up to ...

Chris Hedges: American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America

[Lethevich]

An audio version of:
[asin]1842127179[/asin]

It's a decent book, it quite well describes why the two fleets were in such relatively good and poor psychological states, and Villeneuve comes across as more sympathetic than usual (deservedly so). It also gives a great movie-like sense of the events gradually unfolding. My only criticism is not about the book itself - it's the narrator (Tony Barbour), who has a familiar "silky" American delivery quite common in audiobooks which I find slightly difficult to enjoy. At times there is a Zapp Brannigan edge to his voice which is quite delightful in the context of what he is reading.

Edit: now onto:

[asin]0140449914[/asin]

I was nervous about whether I should bother reading 700 pages of this given the strong reservations the translator has about the impossibility of accurately translating Hašek's manner of writing, but I'll give it a try.

Edit2: this really doesn't read particularly well in English.

[The Diner]

[Florestan]

[asin]0140449914[/asin]

I was nervous about whether I should bother reading 700 pages of this given the strong reservations the translator has about the impossibility of accurately translating Hašek's manner of writing, but I'll give it a try.

Edit2: this really doesn't read particularly well in English.

Don't know about English, but the Romanian translation is a classic on its own, one of the funniest book I've ever read.

[Lethevich]

The main problem I have so far is that it alludes to a lot of small things that I have little understanding of - this on its own is not a problem usually, but it's always delivered with a style of wordplay that doesn't seem to translate very well. It makes me feel like I'm watching a French dub of a Laurel and Hardy sketch - I understand a fair amount of what is being said, but the over-arching logic is lost on me.

[Brahmsian]

At a fundraising booksale for the Humane Society, I got the following four books:

The Stand - Stephen King

Tai-pan - James Clavell

The Godfather Returns - Mark Winegardner (based on the characters created by Mario Puzo)

The Glenn Gould Reader - Edited and with an Introduction by Tim Page

[SonicMan46]

A World Without Ice (2009) by Henry Pollack, Ph.D. (Professor U. of Michigan) - shared the Nobel Prize recently - Amazonian reviews HERE w/ an overall 4* rating (but a few rather STUPID comments have lowered the rating of this concept on global warming) - just for some interest - if the entire ice frozen in Greenland disappeared, the oceans would rise 25 feet (this would cover Key West which Susan & I are about to vacation on Saturday); if the entire ice on the planet melted, the sea level would rise 250 feet! Think of all the great coastal cities around the world - the concepts, theories, predictions remain confusing and unpredictable, but the book is compelling - a GREAT read if you're interested in 'global warming' -

[val]

WALTER BENJAMIN:        Gesammelt Schriften

Several articles and essays written between the two WW. The best are the articles about the aesthetic of Romantism, in special about the tragedies of Hebbel.

[Ten thumbs]

Currently reading Maria Edgeworth. Ruskin's evaluation of her books as 'the most re-readable in existence' is perhaps a little out of date now but there is plenty of substance from someone who is clearly a very intelligent writer. There are long paragraphs that you can't stop reading. One such is in a letter from Mrs Stanhope to the eponymous heroine in 'Belinda' that runs to 150 lines (about 1500 words). It rattles on like an express train and you're through before you know it.

[Brian]

The main problem I have so far is that it alludes to a lot of small things that I have little understanding of - this on its own is not a problem usually, but it's always delivered with a style of wordplay that doesn't seem to translate very well. It makes me feel like I'm watching a French dub of a Laurel and Hardy sketch - I understand a fair amount of what is being said, but the over-arching logic is lost on me.

The Good Soldier Svejk is one of my favorite comedies, so I'll weigh in. That's the more satisfactory of the two wholly unsatisfactory English translations. The other one excises all the bad language and sexual stuff.

I consider Svejk a sort of Don Quixote war novel. It's really, really episodic. There's not much "structure"; as Svejk rambles, so the story rambles. There is a lot of slightly garbled wordplay and it's really rooted in its setting, though that can be atmospheric and charming. I found a lot of individual stories utterly hilarious - like the evil inspector who gets eaten by his dogs early on. I read the novel for a literature course, and the professor did touch on the cultural factor: Svejk has become a Czech archetypal character, like Quixote, but a character which our lores just don't have. He's uniquely Czech. He's an innocent, such that you can't tell if he's really naive or secretly a total genius at avoiding combat. That's one question we really probed over and over again in our discussions: is Svejk a moron who bounces into good fortune or is he cunning?

Anyway, he is an archetype we don't have. I have no clue who could play him in a movie. I really hope, though, that you find him as compelling and funny as I did. One caveat: the book later on becomes extremely repetitive with more silly adventures, and our professor actually recommended skipping over several parts - if I remember correctly, he recommended cutting from page 250 to 500, or something like that. That's another respect in which it's like Don Quixote: swallowing it all in one go isn't mandatory.

[Kontrapunctus]

Trapped by Jack Kilborn. It's awful and I'm giving up on it (ridiculously gruesome and amateurishly written). Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian or Wendy Lesser's Music for Silenced Voices: Shostakovich and His Fifteen Quartets will be next.

[Philoctetes]

A great paired reading. I found both books sad, and their endings melancholy. The search for the American Dream, a futile pursuit, in their cases, both centered around madness and a loss of innocence.

Currently reading: Like 14 books on Sierra Leone and Liberia for school.

[Fëanor]

...
If you want a truly scholarly presentation of the issue, you might try this book. (The other 4 volumes of the series are equally valuable).

FWIW, I have begun to read this book.  So far it seems a scholarly but much drier tome than Charles Freeman's A New History of Early Christianity. Versus Freeman's, this book (1) doesn't discuss the provinence of canonic scriptures, or (2) doesn't provide much non-religious context, and (3) is arrange topically overall rather than chronologically.

Pelikan believes that though doctrine, (beliefs>teachings>dogmas), evolved, it had a consistent mainstream, (my term), always tending to a unified conclusion;  from this mainstream various different opinions diverged, hence on account of their divergent nature can legitimately be called heresies.

Eusebius? Really?  Is there one particlar Eusebius of the many of the name after which you choose your moniker? 

[Florestan]

Eusebius? Really?  Is there one particlar Eusebius of the many of the name after which you choose your moniker? 

After Florestan had to go for security reasons, Eusebius was the logical choice. 

[Fëanor]

After Florestan had to go for security reasons, Eusebius was the logical choice. 

But you're being enigmatic, Eusebius/Florestan.    A little "disambiguation" is in order: which "Eusebius" do you honour?

. Eusebius (praepositus sacri cubiculi), under Constantius II
. Eusebius of Alexandria (6th century), Christian author
. Eusebius of Angers (died 1081), bishop of Angers
. Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 263 – c. 339), early Christian bishop and historian. <== most probable??
. Saint Eusebius of Cremona (died c. 423)
. Eusebius of Dorylaeum (5th century), bishop of Dorylaeum, opponent of Nestorianism and Monophysistism
. Eusebius of Emesa (300–360), bishop of Emesa
. Eusebius of Laodicea (died c. 268), bishop of Laodicea
. Eusebius of Nicomedia (died 341), bishop of Berytus, Nicomedia and Constantinople, leader of Arianism
. Saint Eusebius of Rome (died c. 357), priest and martyr
. Saint Eusebius of Samosata (died c. 380), bishop of Samosata
. Saint Eusebius of Vercelli (283–381), bishop of Vercelli, opponent of Arianism
. Pope Eusebius (died after 310), Pope in 309 or 310.
. Eusebius, one of the personae of Robert Schumann

[Brahmsian]

. Eusebius, one of the personae of Robert Schumann

The gun has been pointed at my head, so I pick this one. 

[Florestan]

But you're being enigmatic, Eusebius/Florestan.    A little "disambiguation" is in order: which "Eusebius" do you honour?

. Eusebius (praepositus sacri cubiculi), under Constantius II
. Eusebius of Alexandria (6th century), Christian author
. Eusebius of Angers (died 1081), bishop of Angers
. Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 263 – c. 339), early Christian bishop and historian. <== most probable??
. Saint Eusebius of Cremona (died c. 423)
. Eusebius of Dorylaeum (5th century), bishop of Dorylaeum, opponent of Nestorianism and Monophysistism
. Eusebius of Emesa (300–360), bishop of Emesa
. Eusebius of Laodicea (died c. 268), bishop of Laodicea
. Eusebius of Nicomedia (died 341), bishop of Berytus, Nicomedia and Constantinople, leader of Arianism
. Saint Eusebius of Rome (died c. 357), priest and martyr
. Saint Eusebius of Samosata (died c. 380), bishop of Samosata
. Saint Eusebius of Vercelli (283–381), bishop of Vercelli, opponent of Arianism
. Pope Eusebius (died after 310), Pope in 309 or 310.
. Eusebius, one of the personae of Robert Schumann

I really appreciate your (or rather, Wikipedia's) erudition, but it seems to me that the only one that can be associated in any meaningful way with Florestan is the last one. 

[Fëanor]

I really appreciate your (or rather, Wikipedia's) erudition, but it seems to me that the only one that can be associated in any meaningful way with Florestan is the last one. 

Ah! Of course!

With recourse (once again) to the Wikipedia, I see what you're talking about.

My only excuse??  Robert Schumann is probably my leasted favourite of all the well-know composers.  And I'm no fan of the Romantic era in general.